Dow AgroSciences

Ke-xue Huang, a Canadian citizen and permanent US resident, was arrested on 13 July, and has been charged under a law designed to protect intellectual property held by US companies. At a bail hearing last week in Massachusetts, the US government claimed that the scientist provided secrets belonging to Dow AgroSciences, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, to the Hunan Normal University in Changsha, China. If convicted of passing the secrets, said to be worth some $100 million, Huang could face up to 15 years in prison for each of 12 counts of economic espionage.

Northrop Grumman

Noshir S. Gowadia, 66, of Maui, Hawaii, was sentenced late yesterday to 32 years in prison for communicating classified national defense information to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), illegally exporting military technical data, as well as money laundering, filing false tax returns, and other offenses.

A federal jury found Gowadia guilty of five criminal offenses relating to his design for the PRC of a low-signature cruise missile exhaust system capable of rendering a PRC cruise missile resistant to detection by infrared missiles.

Quantum 3D

Chinese Spy Meng sentenced to 24 months

Xiaodong Sheldon Meng was a 44 year-old software engineer living in Cupertino, California when, in 2008, he became the first person sentenced for a violation of the U.S.'s Economic Epionage Act of 1996. Meng had worked as an engineer for Quantum3D, a defense contractor that makes visual simulation software used for military training and other purposes. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Meng engaged in widespread spying on behalf of The People's Republic of China between 2002 and 2006: obtaining the source code for software known as Mantis, used by the U.S. military to simiulate real world motion for military training. Also stolen were DOD restricted technologies known as nVSensor and viXsen, which are used for tasks like simulating night vision training runs by military aircraft, and the source code for six other products, and more than one hundred materials and utilities belonging to Quantum3D. He was sentenced to 24 months in prison and a three year term of supervised release and fined $10,000.

General Motors

A former General Motors engineer and her husband conspired to steal trade secrets about hybrid technology and use the information to make private deals with Chinese competitors, according to a federal indictment unsealed Thursday. Shanshan Du and Yu Qin, both of Troy, were indicted on conspiracy, fraud and other charges. They had been under scrutiny for years and were charged in 2006 with destroying documents sought by investigators, a case that was dropped while a broader probe was pursued. The indictment says Du, who was hired at GM in 2000, purposely sought a transfer in 2003 to get access to hybrid technology and began copying documents by the end of that year.In 2005, she copied thousands of documents, five days after getting a severance offer from the automaker, according to the indictment.By that summer, Qin was telling people he had a deal to provide hybrid technology to Chery Automobile, a GM competitor in China, the indictment says. The couple had set up their own company, Millennium Technology International.http://www.mlive.com/auto/index.ssf/2010/07/ex-general_motors_worker_husba.html

Carbon Fiber

Three Men Plead Guilty of Conspiring to Export High Modulus Carbon-Fiber According to their respective plea agreements, each defendant admitted that from March 23, 2007, through April 6, 2008, they conspired to violate the Export Administration Regulations by exporting and attempting to export from the United States to Singapore, Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China high-modulus carbon-fiber material without an export license issued by the U.S. Commerce Department. For national security, nuclear proliferation and antiterrorism reasons, the U.S. government requires a license to export these materials. The carbon-fiber material the defendants sought to export has applications in rockets, satellites, spacecraft and uranium enrichment.http://hongkong.usconsulate.gov/ushk_others_2009032301.html

Dupont

HONG MENG, Former DuPont Chemist Pleads Guilty - Theft of Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) Trade SecretsMENG was involved in research in the field of Organic Light Emitting Diodes (“OLED”) during his tenure at DuPont. OLED technology represents the next generation of display and lighting applications, and DuPont has expended significant resources on OLED research and development. In early 2009, DuPont’s OLED research efforts resulted in the development of a breakthrough chemical process that increased the performance and longevity of OLED displays. The chemical process was considered to be a “trade secret” by DuPont, which took commensurate measures to protect it. MENG was aware of these security measures and knew that the chemical process was a DuPont trade secret.In Spring 2009, while still employed by DuPont and without company permission, MENG accepted a position as a faculty member at Peking University (PKU) College of Engineering, Department of Nanotechnology, in Beijing, China. After MENG accepted employment with PKU, he hired an assistant and graduate student; received office space, lab space, and an email address; was listed as a faculty member on the PKU website; and gave a presentation to officials of a regional Chinese government, soliciting funding to commercialize his OLED research at PKU. MENG failed to inform DuPont about his actions.

On July 30, 2009, MENG emailed a Microsoft Word document to his PKU email account which contained, embedded on the second page, the protected chemical process. In August 2009, MENG downloaded the same Word document from his DuPont work computer to a thumb drive, which he subsequently uploaded to his personal computer.

Valspar

Arlington Heights man sentenced for stealing trade secretsA former Arlington Heights man has been sentenced to 15 months in prison after pleading guilty to stealing trade secrets from the paint company that employed him, Valspar Corp. in Wheeling. David Yen Lee, 54, who now lives in Jersey City, N.J., admitted to downloading about 160 “batch tickets,” or formulas for paints and coatings, from the firm's Wheeling offices as he prepared to make a career move from Valspar to Nippon Paint, based in Shanghai, China, at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009. Lee, who'd worked as a technical director in Valspar's architectural-coatings group since 2006, had accepted a position with Nippon in 2009 when the theft was discovered.

Three Chinese Nationals and Two Corporations Charged with Illegally Exporting Defense Articles and Commerce Controlled Electronics Components to China and Conspiring to Violate US Export Laws ZHEN ZHOU WU a/k/a ALEX WU, YUFENG WEI a/k/a ANNIE WEI, CHITRON-US and CHITRON-SHENZHEN are also charged with illegally exporting electronics components to the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, an organization which is designated on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List (according to the Indictment, organizations listed on the Entity List are subject to specific license requirements due to U.S. national security interests). According to the Indictment, Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology “conducts research for the development of, and manufactures, tactical missiles, carrier rockets, space launch vehicles, and satellites.” Lastly, the Indictment charges YUFENG WEI a/k/a ANNIE WEI with immigration fraud.

The Second Superseding Indictment alleges that ZHEN ZHOU WU a/k/a ALEX WU founded CHITRON-SHENZHEN in or about April 1996. In March 1998, ZHEN ZHOU WU a/k/a ALEX WU incorporated CHITRON-US, which served as CHITRON-SHENZHEN’s purchasing office in the United States. The Indictment further alleges that using CHITRON-US, ZHEN ZHOU WU a/k/a ALEX WU, YUFENG WEI a/k/a ANNIE WEI, and CHITRONSHENZHEN ordered U.S. military products and Commerce controlled electronic components from U.S. companies for end-users in mainland China. Allegedly, at the instruction of ZHEN ZHOU WU a/k/a ALEX WU and YUFENG WEI a/k/a ANNIE WEI, the U.S. companies wereinstructed to ship all ordered products to the CHITRON-US office located in Waltham, Massachusetts. According to the Indictment, upon receipt by CHITRON-US of the ordered products, the U.S. commodities were inspected by CHITRON-US employees and consolidated into packages, which were exported on a weekly basis to mainland China using freight forwarders in Hong Kong without obtaining the required export licenses from the Department of State and Department of Commerce. According to the Indictment, ZHEN ZHOU WU a/k/a ALEX WU promoted CHITRON on its website (shared by both CHITRON-US and CHITRONSHENZHEN) as a company that could procure military products. Thus, by “2007, according to WU, Chinese military-related institutions (including research institutes) in electronics and aerospace comprised 25% of CHITRON-SHENZHEN’s customers.”http://www.bis.doc.gov/news/2009/doj10052009.htm

Boeing

Former Boeing Engineer Convicted of Economic Espionage in Theft of Space Shuttle Secrets for China

A former Rockwell and Boeing engineer from Orange County was remanded into custody this morning after a federal judge convicted him of charges of economic espionage and acting as an agent of the People’s Republic of China, for whom he stole restricted technology and Boeing trade secrets, including information related to the Space Shuttle program and Delta IV rocket.

Dongfan “Greg” Chung, 73, of Orange, Calif., who was employed by Rockwell International from 1973 until its defense and space unit was acquired by Boeing in 1996, was found guilty by United States District Judge Cormac J. Carney, who presided over a three-week bench trial last month.

Power Paragon

Chinese Spy 'Slept' In U.S. for 2 DecadesEspionage Network Said to Be Growing Prosecutors called Chi Mak the "perfect sleeper agent," Eventually, Mak's job gave him access to sensitive plans for Navy ships, submarines and weapons. These he secretly copied and sent via courier to China -- fulfilling a mission that U.S. officials say he had been planning since the 1970s. Mak was sentenced last week to 24 1/2 years in prison by a federal judge who described the lengthy term as a warning to China not to "send agents here to steal America’s military secrets." But it may already be too late: According to U.S. intelligence and Justice Department officials, the Mak case represents only a small facet of an intelligence-gathering operation that has long been in place and is growing in size and sophistication. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/02/ST2008040204050.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwmsK0gBQvs

Sun MicroSystems and Transmeta

Two Men Plead Guilty to Stealing Trade Secrets from Silicon Valley Companies to Benefit ChinaSAN JOSE United States Attorney Kevin V. Ryan announced that Fei Ye and Ming Zhong pleaded guilty today to two counts each of economic espionage. Ming and Zhong were arrested at the San Francisco International Airport on November 23, 2001, with stolen trade secret information in their luggage while attempting to board an aircraft bound for China. The defendants today admitted to possessing stolen trade secrets from Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Transmeta Corporation with the intent to benefit the Peoples Republic of China. These guilty pleas mark the first convictions in the country for economic espionage under 18 U.S.C. 1831, and are the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with assistance from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

U.S. Attorney Kevin V. Ryan stated, "These guilty pleas represent the first convictions in the country under this section of the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, a law that was enacted by Congress against a backdrop of increasing threats to corporate security and a rising tide of international and domestic economic espionage. Silicon Valley generates so many of the ideas and innovations in technology that give this country an economic edge and we are committed to working with and protecting the companies who are robbed of their valuable trade secrets."

Mr. Ye and Mr. Zhong today admitted that they intended to utilize the trade secrets in designing a computer microprocessor that was to be manufactured and marketed by a company that they had established, known as Supervision, Inc. In pleading guilty, Mr. Ye and Mr. Zhong admitted that Supervision was to have provided a share of any profits made on sales of chips to the City of Hangzhou and the Province of Zhejiang in China, from which Supervision was to receive funding. Mr. Ye and Mr. Zhong further admitted that their company had applied for funding from the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China, commonly known as the "863 Program."

Wavelab

Virginia Corporation Sentenced for Unlawful Export of Sensitive Electronic Components to China WaveLab, Inc., of Reston, Virginia, was sentenced today to one year of supervised probation and a $15,000 fine, together with $85,000 in forfeiture previously ordered, for the unlawful export of electronic components to the People’s Republic of China. In a statement of facts filed with the plea agreement, WaveLab admitted that it had knowingly and willfully exported hundreds of power amplifiers that could be used in satellite communication of data, voice, and video signals, as well as in wireless data communications. In addition to commercial uses, the power amplifiers had military applications and were therefore controlled for national security reasons for export to China. WaveLab admitted at its guilty plea that notwithstanding its knowledge of the licensing requirement, it failed to obtain a license for the export of more than 2,400 power amplifiers.http://www.bis.doc.gov/news/2008/doj06_06_2008.htm

Endevco

Woman Accused in China Arms Export Case

Chinese woman living in Connecticut sought to buy military equipment commonly used to gauge the power of nuclear explosions and export it to her native country, a federal grand jury charged Thursday. Qing Li, 39, first contacted undercover federal agents by e-mail in April to ask about buying sensors, according to the indictment. She was working with a co-conspirator in China who was trying to buy the devices for a state-run agency and arranged conference calls with the undercover investigators, according to the indictment. The credit-card-size devices, made by Endevco Corp. of San Juan Capistrano, can also be used for developing missiles or artillery. It is illegal to export the sensors, which the government has classified as defense articles, without State Department approval. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/18/AR2007101802076.html?nav=hcmodule

ITT Corporation

ITT Corporation to plead guilty, pay $100 million fine for illegally exporting secret military data overseas ITT Corporation, the leading manufacturer of military night vision equipment for the U.S. Armed Forces, has admitted sending classified materials overseas and will pay a $100 million penalty. The $100 million penalty is one of the largest ever paid in a criminal case. ITT Corporation will also be the first major defense contractor convicted of a criminal violation of the Arms Export Control Act. Assistant Attorney General Wainstein said, "The sensitive night vision systems produced by ITT Corporation are critical to U.S. war-fighting capability and are sought by our enemies and allies alike. ITT's exportation of this sensitive technology to China and other nations jeopardized our national security and the safety of our military men and women on the battlefield. The superior quality of our night vision technology gives the United States Armed Forces an enormous advantage on the battlefield. Sending sensitive information on these advancements overseas without the necessary licenses puts that advantage in jeopardy," said U.S. Attorney John Brownlee. "We hope the agreement reached with ITT will send a clear message that any corporation who unlawfully sends classified or export- controlled material overseas will be prosecuted and punished. In addition, the remedial action plan that is part of this agreement is designed to bring ITT Corporation back into full compliance, which will benefit both the corporation and the United States."http://www.fas.org/asmp/resources/110th/ICE27mar07.htm

Motorola

Chinese high-tech spy case inches closer to trial Hanjuan Jin was arrested by U.S. Customs officials on Feb. 28, 2007, at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, ready to depart on a one-way ticket to China. She was carrying over 1,000 electronic and paper documents from her former employer -- she had just quit Motorola -- as well as Chinese documents for military telecommunications technology, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) affidavit filed in court as part of the case.

That’s the heart of the feds’ criminal lawsuit against Jin, a U.S. citizen born in China, who was released on $50,000 bail.

But the complex, dizzying saga doesn’t end there. The case also involves claims that about a half-dozen Chinese engineers downloaded proprietary documents from both Motorola and Lemko, along with source code, as they made employment leaps between the two competitors, both located in Schaumburg, Ill.

Ford

Mike Yu: Chinese Engineer Charged with Stealing Car Secrets from FordThe FBI reports that Xiang Dong (Mike) Yu had been a product engineer with Ford Motor Co. for ten years, from 1997 to 2007. The indictment alleges that in December 2006, Yu accepted a job with the China branch of another US company (electronics manufacturer Foxconn PCE Industry Inc.), and copied sensitive Ford documents prior to his departure from Ford, with the purposes of leveraging the trade secrets to gain employment.The indictment alleges that on the eve of his departure from Ford and before he told Ford of his new job, Yu copied some 4,000 Ford documents onto an external hard drive, including sensitive Ford design documents. Included in those documents were system design specifications for the Engine/Transmission Mounting Subsystem, Electrical Distribution system, Electric Power Supply, Electrical Subsystem and Generic Body Module, among othershttp://www.fbi.gov/detroit/press-releases/2011/de041211.htm